DarkImbecile wrote:According to the press around it, this cut was put together for the first time and financed by Criterion, so no one's seen it in this form.

The fact that Criterion basically produced this is huge news for me. This has to be classified as a rather big project with Malick, right? I cannot visualize Malick carelessly slapping 50mins together. I wonder if we will see similar new editions of Malick films post Tree Of Life.

It's strange how Penn in this film is the subject of many jokes. Because, even though I have not seen this film in over two years, I remember Penn in a powerful albeit understated and quiet role. When I recall The Tree Of Life, Penn is upfront in my memories.

Not really. I mean he's third in my sequences preference, as everything in the 50 is perfect and Genesis is also beautiful. But I rather like it. Penn's parts were also Malick's first modern short pieces, which back then was both new and eye-opening. I still love the shit out of this film so excited for even more footage. Shame this is the last Malick I like

It’s probably a question of sensibility but as someone who runs a mile from anybody who waffles on about being “spiritual” this movie was like getting beaten to death with a rolled up yoga mat as far as I’m concerned.

Outside of any spiritual consideration, I thought it was a very moving poetic take on forgivingness. And as a whole, while I'm not very fond of heavy spiritual movies either (though seemingly not as much as you), I found plenty to like outside this area. But I suppose it's a typically YMMV zone.

Lost Highway wrote:It’s probably a question of sensibility but as someone who runs a mile from anybody who waffles on about being “spiritual” this movie was like getting beaten to death with a rolled up yoga mat as far as I’m concerned.

I think there's a bid difference between those pseudo spirituals (and Malick reached that level with everything post ToL) and trying to express the ineffable using cinema. I'm a sucker just for those beautiful small moments of childhood memories, that Malick goes the extra mile and attempts to tie everything together (death, nature vs nurture, the whole fricking universe being made as a way to understand and cope with our little life) but does so through sound and image.
Do you also not like Dreyer, Tarkovsky, Angelopoulos and Kieslowski?

To be exact, ToL has more, to me, to be linked with classical philosophy themes than spirituality, the most obvious exemple to me being the hard working father working on big modern noisy things vs the nurturing nature-loving calming mother.
All these small things moved me a lot. The way Malick represents the arrival of a child in a family, coping with death, the way the children see their mother as some kind of goddess.
Maybe it's spiritual, I guess, but not directly a discussion over God, more how to see one's life, one's actions. It's, in a way, not very different from what tons and tons of artists have been discussing for centuries.

tenia wrote:To be exact, ToL has more, to me, to be linked with classical philosophy themes than spirituality, the most obvious exemple to me being the hard working father working on big modern noisy things vs the nurturing nature-loving calming mother.
All these small things moved me a lot. The way Malick represents the arrival of a child in a family, coping with death, the way the children see their mother as some kind of goddess.
Maybe it's spiritual, I guess, but not directly a discussion over God, more how to see one's life, one's actions. It's, in a way, not very different from what tons and tons of artists have been discussing for centuries.

I agree with you, but it depends on each person's definition of spirituality. That's why I said this isn't pseudo, like Point Break or Revenant (I think the Revenant is a good counterpoint, as that film tries hard to reach Malick profoundness but fails)

Noiretirc wrote:It's strange how Penn in this film is the subject of many jokes. Because, even though I have not seen this film in over two years, I remember Penn in a powerful albeit understated and quiet role. When I recall The Tree Of Life, Penn is upfront in my memories.

Lost Highway wrote:It’s probably a question of sensibility but as someone who runs a mile from anybody who waffles on about being “spiritual” this movie was like getting beaten to death with a rolled up yoga mat as far as I’m concerned.

I think there's a bid difference between those pseudo spirituals (and Malick reached that level with everything post ToL) and trying to express the ineffable using cinema. I'm a sucker just for those beautiful small moments of childhood memories, that Malick goes the extra mile and attempts to tie everything together (death, nature vs nurture, the whole fricking universe being made as a way to understand and cope with our little life) but does so through sound and image.
Do you also not like Dreyer, Tarkovsky, Angelopoulos and Kieslowski?

I loved all of that in Badlands and Days of Heaven, the latter I count as one of my favourite films. But in those film the nature imagery, the interconnectedness was in the service of a drama which I found compelling. Once Malick reduced everything to his directorial flourishes in search for The Meaning of Life, his films lost me. It’s exactly these ideas of everything being interconnected which I have no use for. It’s stoner mysticism at best for me.

The closest to that type of thing I respond to in drama would be Thornton Wilder‘s Our Town. While often mistaken for being folksy and twee, its view of the universe and our place in it, is far closer to my heart. Tree of Life suggests that in the interconnectedness of all things on earth there is something bigger than us. It suggests a sort of Heaven. That veers too close to religion and spirituality for me and it doesn’t connect with me. Thornton Wilder says, this is all there is. His afterlife isn’t to be taken literally, it’s a dramatic device to reflect on the short time we have on earth. The meaning is in the everyday and that’s pretty much it. No larger purpose, no god, no reconciliations in the afterlife.

I like Dreyer but you are indeed right that I don’t connect with the other directors you‘ve mentioned. I’ve only seen one Angelopoulos which didn’t do much for me and Tarkovsky‘s and Kieslowski‘s mysticism and spirituality run pretty much contrary to my sensibilities. You can add Bresson as well. Give me the humanism of Truffaut, the politics of Fassbinder, the satire of political and religious institutions of Buñuel, the romantic cynicism of Hitchcock and the surreal anarchy of Lynch instead. They are the filmmakers I feel philosophically closest to.

I guess you answered it yourself,so there really isn't much to go off from here. I'm just more of an inquisitive person, so just raising questions and leaving them open for me to think is usually what I find most illuminating. Hence my deep devotion to those directors I mentioned

dda1996a wrote:I guess you answered it yourself,so there really isn't much to go off from here. I'm just more of an inquisitive person, so just raising questions and leaving them open for me to think is usually what I find most illuminating. Hence my deep devotion to those directors I mentioned

I didn’t pose a question. I answered you, so I don’t understand the first sentence.

I don’t know why preferring some filmmakers to others makes me less of an inquisitive person. All of the directors I’ve mentioned have made films which leave questions at the end. My inquiries just have more to do with moral, scientific, ethical and political conundrums than with spirituality or religion, which as an atheist I reject. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious about our place in the world.

I think Tree of Life is pretty evenly split between startlingly vivid evocations of private moments and clichéd imagery that just fails on a visceral level (and it comes pretty thick in the latter part of the film). when I first saw it, I focused on the latter and really disliked it. subsequent viewings made me appreciate it much more, but I don't think I'll ever be anything other than divided on its merits.

I have no idea what this has to do with Dreyer who to my knowledge never used a single visual cliché in his work. his films work powerfully as human dramas, not as allegories or statements or "spiritual" musings.

I hate the mystification that often goes on regarding "spiritual" directors. Paul Schrader has a lot to answer for.

Personally, I do find the drama in Tree of Life compelling. I think Jack seems like a very real and empathetic person, not least in his inchoate search for transcendence of mortality and "the meaning of life" - and, importantly, I think this search makes compelling drama even if materialist and/or atheist philosophy is true. It could be that the spiritual quest is inherently futile and tragic, and it's certainly true that it very easily shades into fanaticism on the one hand and a vague pseudo-religious aetheticism on the other. But either way, it seems to be very deeply rooted in human nature. I'd hate to think that being an atheist means one can't appreciate this drama. (This is not to say that Lost Highway said that, or that there's anything wrong at all with preferring cinema that focuses on more worldly issues.)

I'd agree that the most "literal" parts are the least effective. The part where people are strolling around on an anonymous tidal flat has never done much for me, either now or when I first saw the film as an impressionable 20-year-old. The film best shows God (or what you will) by finding new ways to look at the beauty of creation. The same is true of, say, Kieslowski, as his reputation for brilliant close-ups suggests. I think the Three Colors trilogy is spiritually powerful, but it achieves this power by looking closely at things in the world. Almost anything will do, even a sugar cube dissolving in coffee or (in Decalogue 2, if memory serves) a fly on the wall.

I meant it as there wasn't much to go on, we'll just agree we have different tastes (even though I like all the directors you mentioned). I meant inquisitive in the sense that I find questions a lot more interesting than getting answers. Hence why the voice-over in Thin Red Line-ToL (from To the Wonder they do reach cliche levels) never bothered me as they made me swoon.
I don't think anyone can watch Order, Day of Wrath or most of all Joan of Arc without mentioning spirituality. I evoked directors who personally are on that spectrum, that of religion and spirituality. Say what you will but I consider his films nothing but religious works of art